The View From Lagos: inside Nigeria’s blooming skateboard communities

The View From... is a column on It’s Nice That written by a team of international correspondents in major creative cities around the world. Every two weeks we report on the design scene in these cities, exploring the topics that are making an impact on the local creative community there. This week, Ugonna-Ora Owoh is reporting from Lagos.

Dencity founder Blessing Ewona has always been fascinated by skate culture. She also has a strange story of how she first started skating: when at an all-women marathon in Lagos, 2019, a man gave her a skateboard out of the blue. “I was just walking around like, Oh, maybe I can find a skateboarder here, when he called me and said he had a skateboard to give me. I didn’t even mention anything to him about looking for a skateboard. He just gave me this small skateboard because I told him it was my birthday.”

When she officially started skating, it shocked her how there were only two women – including herself – amidst dozens of boys at her local skate spot, and though there were days she asked “where are the girls” to the boys, it later occurred to her that she needed to proactively bring more women into skateboard culture. At first, watching the film Skate Kitchen offered her that perspective. She wanted to create a community, a space where women could find friendship through skateboarding – and that inspired her. And so Dencity – Nigeria’s first female skate collective – was born, at the National Stadium, Lagos, a venue that now serves as one of the community’s key meeting spots.

The rise of Dencity is somewhat strategic; partly championed by words of mouth during events, especially Lagos popular raves, and partly social media, where Ewona regularly shares clips of herself skating in order to empower other women who share the interest. Now it has paid off, with Dencity blossoming into this beautiful network, with groups in five different states in Nigeria and space for a growing number of women to express themselves, educate themselves and build relationships. But skateboarding isn’t the only thing they do at Dencity. Workshops on varieties of art are also held, like painting or the art of DJing, which Ewona has slowly picked up due to her passion for music.

But running Dencity does have challenges, and for Ewona it’s the financial issues, as Dencity is self-sponsored. “We face little-to-no access to skateboards, because an average Nigerian cannot afford a skateboard. In the past, Motherlan had sent us skateboards. There’s no good roads, and also people are not really open-minded about the sport. When they see us riding, especially as women, they say terrible things. Somebody literally stopped me on the road sometime ago to tell me I was wasting my life, that I should go to school, I should marry, that all these things won’t take me anywhere. I’ve also had to beg some parents to let their daughters come out to skate, and some people sneak out to come and skate because their parents are not supportive of it.”

Nigeria’s skate culture has been in existence for decades but nothing was made to document its early days. It was only until the early 2010s when social media and other networks began to give skaters the opportunity to showcase their talents and build communities. Amongst the few, Wafflesncream stood out, becoming the pioneering brand behind skateboard culture in Nigeria. It was co-founded by Jomi Marcus-Bello in 2012 with the aim to support youths who showcased interest in skateboarding. And over a decade later, it has been able to make that happen in abundance. Not only has the brand built West Africa’s first public skatepark here in Lagos, known as Waf Skatepark; it has bolstered emerging skateboard communities beyond Nigeria, holding exhibitions, skate competitions, workshops and even collaborating with household brands like Alara, Oscar Deen, Homecoming and others. Wafflesncream’s influence stretches into fashion, where with its flagship store, it’s been able to break into the streetwear market and even into the music scene, where major Nigerian artists can be seen using its space or wearing its designs.

“It’s been a journey,” says Addy, senior creative designer at Wafflesncream. “Everyone sees Waf from the outside and it looks all fresh, fly and clean but there’s a whole lot going on behind the scenes. There have been numerous sleepless nights, blood, sweat, and tears. People have worked tirelessly. It’s been crazy. If this was something that had been done before, it would have been much easier to draw inspiration or learn from others but this is unprecedented, at least here in Nigeria. It’s just been us failing our way forward.”

In 2020, the Bello brothers, Muhd Kabir and Sadeeq, started a community through their shared interest in skateboarding. They called it Brotherly Skateboards, but it wasn’t just about skate. They wanted to explore their other creative interests with it: film, music, art. “I think we grew up inspired by creative minds in music and art. Building a skate community helps put more of our creativity into that,” says Kabir. Their numbers have since grown to almost 70 members and go beyond the borders of major cities in the country. They even document their skating journey through vlogs on YouTube, where their 300+ subscribers get to immerse themselves with the Brotherly Skateboarders, watching their flaws turn to wins, and their wins into jubilations.

But, similarly to Dencity, it’s been difficult to balance the growth of the community with the lack of resources for those members, especially with Nigeria’s recent economic challenges affecting the cost of kit. “We’ve been keeping up with the number of people that want to skate and learn, but they have no access to skateboards because of the cost,” he says. It’s also a reason why he began making skateboards, in order to remedy the lack, not just for his members but for others too. He has slowly evolved into a skateboard artist, wherein he both constructs and paints skateboards. He also documents the process on Instagram. “It’s just been about the daily practice of my craft and getting better with every aspect of it. We are currently on a large scale of production, now we are making for others beyond our community. I just feel we can live better lives with skateboards.”

Globally, fashion and skate culture has simultaneously co-existed. And in Nigeria, the former reshaped the latter to become a huge subculture. One of those behind this fusion is Go (formerly known as Curb skateboards), founded by Lukman Abdulrahman in 2013. Abdulrahman was a skater in Abuja who was lonely and propelled to build a community. “There was so much skateboarding was bringing to my life in terms of balance and I said to myself, why don’t I show people all the things they could benefit with it too and lead them through it,” he tells me.

A decade later he has achieved a huge community, built a streetwear brand that generates revenue and done great collaborations. But Abdulrahman refuses to take credit for this fashion and skate fusion in Nigeria. “It has always been there from the beginning of time,” he states. “Fashion has always been influenced by skateboarding, because we skateboarders bring the true street style, like the Supremes. And you can see high-end brands getting into skateboarding, Chanel, Louis Vuitton. Fusing fashion with skate culture is quite easy because it’s already there, you can only try your best to innovate and try to create things that are new.”

GoSkate wares are just like any streetwear trends, think Y2K — crop tops, pocket denims with embellishment, T-shirts, all with printed or handcraft designs and the brand’s logo. “In skateboarding, there is no one who’s the best. A lot of people will argue that Tony Hawk is the most popular but not the best. You will find so many skaters in Indonesia’s suburbs who can skate better than he does. It’s just about being different and having people to share that with.”

Ugonna-Ora shares his top tips for immersing yourself in Lagos’ skate scene, from a streetwear convention to a cultural festival, plus the aforementioned Dencity’s tour and Wafflesncream’s latest collection.

• Street Souk: Africa’s biggest streetwear community that holds an annual convention for streetwear and skate lovers.

• Wafflescream new capsule released this week, featuring denim patchwork.

• Dencity’s all round tour is forthcoming towards the end of the year and happening across five cities in Nigeria. 

• Homecoming — a festival of cultural exchange that platforms the best of Africans in fashion, arts and sports especially skate culture.